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Friday, November 11, 2011

The Cerveau is a Terrible Thing to Waste

It's happened! It has finally happened. Actually, it's probably occurred before but I just don't remember.

Drum roll please.......I dreamed in French!!

I normally do not remember my dreams. But this morning, in the hazy space between slumber and and the light of day, I had a dream in this language that I struggle with daily. Enfin!

It was not an all important dream...as in, say, the Dream of Martin Luther King. It's only real importance is that it proved to me that I've sort of arrived. It also, however, proved to me how little of my brain I really use in my waking moments.

Yesterday, thanks to a friend of a friend, I went to look at a car. It has been 3 years since I've had wheels. It never seemed all that important and a car is also a luxury I can't afford. But I'm starting to get really tired of depending on the bus or others for my transportation and more and more often I'm needing to get around for business reasons. Last week, after waiting almost 3 years with my name on a Grand List, I finally received the right to rent a parking spot here in Aix. And it's just behind my apartment. A stroke of good luck that I'm taking as a sign. Now I have two weeks to claim it. And I need to have a car...as in OWN a car with a registration in my name...to secure the spot. So begins the search.

Because I only have 1,000 euros to spend (yeah, I know, that's about what I spent on my 1965 Volkswagon van in 1981!), I'm looking in odd places. Like the giant garage in Marseille that pulls in wrecks, stolen cars, and other insurance problems and resells them or uses them for parts. Sometimes with cars like these, there are issues. The first issue with this car is that it does not have a registration. They are hoping to get it from the insurance company but they're not sure if this will happen. So I'm waiting. After that, it will have to pass inspection.

Back to the dream. I was having a telephone conversation (in French) with the guy at the garage concerning the car. Apparently there were problems with the it during inspection.

He said to me, "Elle etait pollueuse (pronounced pole-use)".

Here's the first proof that I use only a pea sized portion of my brain. Not only did he use the feminine form for the car (elle), a problem I can never get straight in my waking, stupid mind, but the complement (pollueuse) agreed with the subject, meaning it was also feminine. How the hell did I do that?

But here's the kicker. In the dream, I said to him in French, " Pollueuse....I don't understand. What does this word mean?"

At this point, my brain found this situation so absurd it woke me up. It woke me up asking, "what in the world does pollueuse mean? And whatever it means, how come I can dream a word that I don't even know during normal, pea-brain hours?" This is simply bizarre.

So I jumped out of bed, grabbed my translator, and looked it up:

pollueur (m), pollueuse (f), ADJ: polluting

What he was telling me is the car didn't pass inspection because it was polluting.

I'm hoping I'm not a premonitional dreamer. I really want that car. I'm also thinking there must be a way for me to learn the conditional and subjunctive verb conjugations in my sleep. That seems to be the only place where I have any brain power. But in celebration of this new "dreaming in French" thing, I officially changed my Facebook status to knowing two languages; English and French. There was not a particular section for being able to speak a language only in your sleep!

Have a great weekend. Please come back and visit on Monday. I'm going to be unveiling my new webstore and offering a give-away. Nobody wants to miss a give-away!

Congratulations on the French Dream; I remember my first one (but, as this is/might be a family site, I can't reveal the details ;-)

Good luck with the car - I bought a Renault Express (little white van) for 500 euros a few years ago and it did me proud (don't listen to anyone who tells you you can't buy a cheap French car.) My only advice would be to go for a petrol engine and choose something French and common - R5 are dead easy to repair - there's very little to go wrong with them. 205s are great fun - also reliable (although changing the clutch can be a bit of a bugger!) My local mechanic drives a 309 because they are dirt cheap and indestructible; round here the bargains tend to come from the local garages although I believe that there's some incentive for old cars to be scrapped rather than sold on - not sure how that's affected the secondhand market?

All the best

Keith

P.S. My BIG DAY in France (apart from the day I met Mrs A Taste of Garlic of course), was when I was asked to explain something to an English new starter at work and...